Photographer Turns Love of Image Filters, Social Media, Into an App that Helps Aspiring Shutterbugs

We want to share a story about a professional photographer, Mohammad Shanab, and how his love for social media and image editing software inspired him to create an iPhone app as a labor of love. We will let Mohammad’s story and the photos that he took from locations around the world speak for themselves.

Canal – Prismit

In many ways Mohammad is like most professional photographers – he is inspired by combinations of color and shape, shade and light, composition of different forms in relation to one another. It is probably his training in product design, however, that spawned his moment of inspiration which lead to the creation of what is now his life’s passion: a neat little iPhone photo app called Prismit. This is a piece of software that other photographers will recognized as having been crafted by one of their own.

Phuket Island – Prismit

Mohammad, who is based in Kuwait, is a senior graphic designer with Kout Food Group, a hospitality company that employs over 7,000 people and includes large franchises of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC and Applebee’s. While developing and art directing advertising and marketing projects, he both photographs and oversees other photographers. Outside of his day job, Mohammad has traveled the world shooting buildings and landscapes – in Italy, France, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Finland, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Thailand and Indonesia.

Sailboat – Prismit

So, with all of that going for him—and no background in software development (he holds a Master’s Degree in Graphic and Product Design from the European Institute of Design in Milan) — why take the time and trouble to develop an iPhone app?

Sunset – Prismit

“As a photographer, I came to realize, like many of the rest of us, that the way to get my work seen was through social media … Instagram,” he says. “But you have to show your best, obviously. So, like other photographers, I was taking pictures with my Canon, editing with three different kinds of software, uploading to my iPhone, and sharing on Instagram.”

Eiffel Tower – Prismit

Mohammad notes that he soon gained a wide audience, with over 30,000 followers on Instagram, many of whom began contacting him to inquire about his techniques.

Flowers – Prismit

“Anybody can use Photoshop,” he says. “It is like fileting steak with a butter knife. I was using all these different software programs to get my signature look that people really responded to. But I had to go through so many steps to get it … take the picture, download it, edit it with all these apps, upload it to my iPhone, then share it out to Instagram. That’s when I had my inspiration: Why not create one app that does it all?”

Sky – Prismit

That’s basically what Prismit does: It gives the user over 100 filters that can be stacked, shuffled, combined and blended. The user can share their pictures to social media — their own and Prismit’s – gaining some much needed recognition in the process. They can also share their new filter combinations to Prismit (where it can become a part of the app itself).

River – Prismit

“The biggest challenge was that I developed this for photographers,” says Mohammad. “It was difficult to convey to the programmers what I saw in my mind’s eye as a photographer, in terms of the how the filters needed to interact with one another, because that had never been done before. So getting it into the iTunes store was a big day, because that meant that we did everything right from a programming angle.”

Subway Doors – Prismit

Mohammad says that social media and the iPhone have revolutionized the landscape for upcoming photographers.

Colorful History – Prismit

“The iPhone is a serious camera. It has great depth. And with the editing firepower and creative subtlety possible on the camera, aspiring photographers can really do amazing things with that small package,” he says. “And social media – especially Instagram – means that people can have a portfolio, a gallery and a show, basically, around the world, twenty-four hours a day. It’s truly remarkable.”